Content
by Pingpong
Summary: Just a little one shot, a glimpse into the life of Chihiro 20 years later. It's a snippet, not a story; a snapshot in life.


I was so tired of browsing the Spirited Away section of and finding little more than the same cliché storyline, so I decided to make my own version of Chihiro's future, after the events in the movie. This was actually inspired by line in a story (I've forgotten which... -.-) that went something along the lines of 'you were supposed to come here, make us better people, then leave' and so my little brain thought, "We all know Chihiro became a better person because of the movie. Why not illustrate that?" Armed with this idea, I decided to break the clichés and make a SA one-shot WITHOUT HAKU, OMG!!

OMG!!

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**Content**

Chihiro was up late again. She had learned 20 years ago that she could never hope to sleep when a story took hold of her. At first, when she was young she had tried to ignore the steady beat of the story's rhythm as it pounded in her blood, louder with each heartbeat. She would lie awake hours past midnight watching the plot magically unfold against the backs of her eyelids, the dialogue appearing out of no where to fill the mouths of characters born from nothing, but there all the same.

In the beginning, they were unrealistic personalities; girls she wished she looked and spoke like and men who she wished would ask her to marry them. But as they developed, night by night, they developed, like children growing into adults, and became like friends to her.

Eventually, she started to write down these stories, filling up notebooks and scribbling on the edges of her school assignments. Her parents were amused at first and bought her all the paper she needed, thinkig it was simply a phase. But they began to realize that that she would not grow out of it and became curious as to what exactly she was jotting down in her notebooks.

After reading a story that spanned 3 100-page spiral bound notebooks, her mother submitted it to a young adult publishing company and they promptly bought the rights to it. Her parents were delighted, but Chihiro didn't much care; she wrote things that were there, as if someone were handing her stories already laid out and she just had to write them down. The only reason it mattered was her parents started encouraging her to write, instead of looking as her slightly askance. Her first commercially published work, a book about a spoiled runaway, was a bestseller but even then, she didn't give it much thought. She wrote a series, and at the age of 18 had enough money to move out on her own.

She bought a small little bungalow in a quaint rural village and when she was not writing, she gardened. Flowers, vegetables, trees and shrubs; if she could get her hands on a plant, it ended up in her yard or house. There was something triumphant in planting a seed and watching it grow, the same thrill of creation and nuturing that she felt when she wrote. When her neighbors would comment on the riot of weeds and flowers her yard soon turned into, she would just grin and tell them, "All things grow where they may." Weeds and flowers; there wasn't much difference to Chihiro. Why pull up a weed when it's bound to come back? Fighting nature was no way to live: it was like fighting the urge to write. It was ultimately a futile struggle.

She nibbled on the end of her pencil and leaned back in the easy chair that dominated the small study, a large pad of paper balanced on her knees. Her cat, a orange and cream tabby called Ryu, purred contentedly from the basket in front of the dying fire. Cold late autumn rain rattled against the windows and she smiled, looking around. It was exactly like she had imagined her home to be, a warm cozy room on a chilly fall night, fire and lamp light providing a comforting rosy glow on the controlled clutter she seemed to take everywhere with her. It would start to snow soon - she had just got the last of the canning and preserving done today and the ground froze nightly now. The small brook that ran through a back edge of her yard was rimmed with frost and she had to break ice off of the well spout every morning. Another smile touched her face; this was her favorite time of the year, after spring of course.

She looked down at the pad of paper in her lap and silently read the last few lines, waiting for more of the inspiration to flood her. After a few moments, it was clear that whatever gave her the drive to continue the story was done for the night and she could get some rest. Ryu purred loudly as she closed the notebook and struggled out of the soft chair, padding over to her desk and putting the pencil in a large jar that served as her holder. With a satisfied sigh, she laid notebook down on the desk and looked out the only window in the room at her dormant backyard. The lone willow tree bent gracefully in the light wind, trailing frostbitten ends on the nearly frozen brook. She would have to trim them before spring arrived.

The quiet dormancy of near-winter appealed to her. It was like the ground was sleeping, waiting for the warmth to call her to life again, like a tantalizing dream. A beautiful slumberer, Chihiro thought absently, pressing a fingertip to the window and watching it fog. So beautiful and delicate in white frost filigree. The beginnings of a story began to nag at the edge of her thoughts as she raised her eyes and watched the cold rain come steadily down. White frost. Or white... steam? She tried to grab at the thought, but for once an idea slipped away from her unwritten.

Suddenly she chuckled, the spell broken, and turned away from the window. Passing by the woven basket, she stooped to give Ryu a petting and bank the fire. With one last scratch for the cat, she walked out of the room, down the hallway and into her bedroom. Faintly, the sound of grumbling could be heard as she lit the fire there. In the window, frost slowly worked its way around each pane of glass, a beautiful latticework of delicate frozen water.


End file.
